On Their Own
by Cousin Mary
Summary: After 'Last Knight' Natalie must move on.
1. Chapter 1

Usual disclaimers, I don't own any Canadian vampire cop shows A/N: This is a post Last Knight story, so you all know what that entails. Enjoy!

On Their Own By: Cousin Mary

With her flowing hair, pale dress and haunted eyes, she reminded the few sleepless souls that saw her of Death itself. Unwelcome to some perhaps, but in a ward filled with those wracked with pain, the sick and the dying, some had silently beckoned her to their sides. 

She could hear their hearts beating, slowly, erratically in some cases. Some of them wished for death, wished for her to come to them, but she would not grant them this. She was here for a single reason, not to feed, not to kill, but... to grant life.

As she walked down the corridor her every movement was slow and deliberate. She heard the clicking of her shoes the linoleum as she walked, so she consciously changed her gait until she was moving almost silently. Everything seemed disconnected, strange and unpleasant. The fluorescent lighting was too harsh, the smell of disinfectant too strong, and then there was the feeling of emptiness. The feeling had followed her around the city, everywhere she went: her apartment, work, back to -his- place, the hollow ache had remained. That was one of the reasons she was here now, to perhaps end that pain, to fill that void, at least partly. 

'Why here?' She asked herself. 'Why her?' Why was she going to this girl's side, someone she hardly knew really, to offer something that was all at once horrible and glorious? To cheat death, to do something that she once would have been abhorred to even contemplate? 

Her thoughts were interrupted as she reached her destination: Room 6. No real significance to the number, yet for a moment she stared intensely at it, as if it would answer her questions if she just looked hard enough. Realizing the pointlessness of this, she cast a quick glance down the hall and slipped into the room. The lights were off. The moon shone in through the slats of the cheap blinds. Only the sounds of the heart monitor, with its slow monotonous beeping and the wet rasping noise of the respirator echoed through the room. 'For some reason sounds always seem louder when the lights are off,' she thought. 'As if struggling to fill the darkness, with sound if not with light.' Shrugging off such fanciful musings, she took a step closer to the bedside. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer, thanking whatever mysterious deity that had helped her survive through the day, had helped them both survive. 

When she'd come stumbling home in the pre-dawn, her collar stained with blood, her life turned inside out, she'd found the tiny light on her answering machine blinking. She'd just stared down at the black box for a moment, as if she couldn't remember what it was, or why she should care. Hitting the button a voice she hadn't recognize had told her, "There's been a mistake, Tracy Vetter is still alive."

A humorless smile had curved her mouth as those words had sunk in. News of Tracy's death had been the final straw. Though they'd never been very close, the thought of her dying had shaken her to the core. Just one loss too many. It'd been more than she could take. Her world had crashed into a smoldering heap at her feet the moment she'd received notice that Detective Vetter had passed away. And then they'd told her, or rather her answering machine, that it had been a mistake. 

Natalie looked down at Tracy Vetter's still form. The head wound, abdominal bleeding, probably the shock too, were killing her. Nat sat down on one of the upholstered chairs, thoughtfully provided for the grieving family members that often sat vigil in intensive care. She looked around the sterile room; the walls were painted a cheerful yellow to help shake off the sense of death, it didn't help much. There were no flowers she noticed, no one had bothered. Tracy wasn't expected to survive another night.

'Sad,' she thought. But then again, who was around to send the fallen detective flowers anyway? Her boyfriend had been killed, the only friends she knew of were Bruce, in jail for second degree murder and Jody, who'd left without a word. 

'There are her parents,' Nat thought. But according to the office rumor-mill, Commissioner Vetter was a politically grasping bastard, and his soon-to-be ex-wife, a lush. "So, you're as alone as I am." Nat mumbled, not really caring if she was heard.

There was someone else who should have sent Tracy flowers, her partner, Nick Knight. Pain shot through Nat as she thought of him. After hearing of Tracy's 'death,' she'd rushed to his loft. Lost, confused... and desperate. She'd asked him to try the cure that less than a week ago she'd assured herself wouldn't work. Her heart on her sleeve, she'd admitted her love and asked for an end. To try and bring him back, or for him to bring her across. Either way, they should have been together. But that's not what had happened. She closed her eyes against the pain as she remembered:

"Damn you Nicholas!" 

Nat heard the words. She tried to turn her head and open her eyes, but she was so tired, all she wanted to do was sleep. Eventually she did manage to slit her eyes open and what she saw was Lacroix taking a large wooden stick to the side of his son's head. As Nick fell unconscious to the floor, Nat gave a faint whimper.

Scooping his son into his arms, Lacroix spared her one last look. He saw that she was still alive, but made no move to help her. He just took his child and left.

Stunned, Natalie lay there a moment. She was dying. She could feel it. There was a numbness in her hands and legs, she felt light-headed and sleepy. But she couldn't go to sleep, she couldn't let herself die! But what could she do?

She cast a longing look at Nick's cordless phone, it was only across the loft, but it might as well have been clear across the country for all the good it did her. So she couldn't call the paramedics. 'They probably wouldn't have been able to get here in time anyway.' She thought. Even with an immediate transfusion she might not survive. Her eyes franticly searched the area, she didn't want to die!

Her eyes landed on her bag. Instantly something horrible occurred to her. Could she? Dare she? She took a deep breath and crawled the few feet to her black medical bag. Movement was agony, every inch like a mile.

Finally she reached it, she paused for a moment, but as the feeling of dizziness almost overtook her, her resolve strengthened. Wrenching open the bag, she pulled out her only hope: A vial of Nick's blood.

Nat shook her head to clear it, no point in rethinking that decision. What was done was done. Now she had to make another choice.

Nat had felt an emptiness in her ever since she'd come across. More than just the loss of her friends, and of Nick, this was the void her master should have filled, at least that's what she supposed. Would creating another vampire help fill it? Not that that would be the only reason to bring Tracy across. Ever since she'd stopped Nick from saving her that night, she'd felt guilty. Maybe it was meant to be this way.

Tracy was bleeding internally, somehow Nat could tell this. If she didn't act now she would die. Sighing and realizing that her logic was quite flawed but not caring, she again opened her bag. She pulled out a syringe; it was filled with another sample of Nick's blood from the supply she'd kept at the lab. 

"Somehow it seems more poetic for Nick to be both our masters," Nat said, "or maybe it's because I just don't want to be wholly responsible for what I'm about to do." She added wryly, a hint of her old humor shining through.

Lifting Tracy's pale arm, Nat quickly found the vein. And with a swift push, sent a measure of vampire blood into her. Now, all she had to do was wait.  
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	2. Alone in the Crowd

Anyway, Usual disclaimers. This is a post LK story, so you all know what that entails. Enjoy!

Alone in a Crowd By: Cousin Mary

Natalie sighed as she navigated the Caddy across Toronto's dark streets on her way home. Lifting her head slightly, she let the cool night air snake through her hair and over her pale face. It smelled of the rain that had fallen earlier that evening; it was a cleansing smell. She felt as if it could almost wash away all her fears and frustrations. She'd almost lost it tonight, a hit and run, so much blood. Nat shook her head to clear it, no point worrying bout that now. No one had seen her fangs drop, everything was okay.

It had been almost a year since she'd become a permanent member of the night shift, and still she had problems with her bloodier cases. She -was- getting better though, at least she didn't have to excuse herself every ten minutes like in the beginning. Nat hit the garage door opener and eased the huge auto into the garage beneath the loft.

Soon after coming across Tracy had insisted on taking up residence here for some reason, and after a few months Nat had joined her. They had a very strange relationship, no one at work could figure out why they wanted to be roommates when it was obvious to even the most casual observer that they didn't particularly -like- each other. But for some reason, they felt drawn together. They didn't talk much. More often than not they barely saw each other, despite the fact that they now lived together. But there was a strange comfort in the proximity, if nothing else. She supposed it was just their link asserting itself, but as Tracy refused to allow herself to be tested or experimented on in any way, she couldn't say for certain.

As the huge steel doors screeched open, Sidney ran into the elevator to greet his mistress. Leaning down, Nat scooped up the cat and stroked him between the ears, soothing him. He didn't like Tracy much either. "Hello? Anybody home?" Nat called out, even though she knew -she- was, she could feel her.

"Yeah, I'm here." Tracy looked up from the kitchen table where a she was working on a pile of paperwork and smiled politely.

Nat set her bag down inside the door and wandered inside their cavernous home. It still looked much the same as when Nick had lived there, though they had made a few changes. There was now a lab bench along one wall, where Nick's old motorcycle had formerly stood. Tracy had taken that bike down to the garage and rode it regularly now. The piano was still there, gathering dust. And many of Nick's paintings still graced the walls, though a few of Tracy's now did too.

Nat had been surprised to learn that her new 'sister' painted, and occasionally wondered while looking at her finished pieces just how much influence Nick's blood had had on her. For though Tracy rarely painted the sun or even abstracts, there was something about her works that reminded her eerily of Nick's. Of course, she had to admit that most things reminded her of Nick these days. 

Nat noticed Tracy had returned to her work, so she didn't bother with any more pleasantries. She walked to the small kitchen area and pulled out a can of Sidney's favorite food. The cat meowed his appreciation before greedily devouring the pureed chicken livers. 'There's a good boy.' She thought and smiled down at her little tiger. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Nat saw Tracy look up for a moment, perhaps to see if her latest thoughts had anything to do with her, as they didn't, she returned to work. Nat frowned slightly as she pulled a bottle of donated plasma from the fridge. Though she could never seem to read Tracy's thoughts, the blonde often seemed to pick up on hers, and while she wasn't entirely comfortable with that fact, there didn't seem to be anything she could do to stop it.

Pulling out the cork, Nat took a long draught of human blood. At first she'd tried to stick to cow, something Tracy had refused to even try, but after awhile, Nat had been forced to admit that drinking human blood made it much easier to control her own 'beast' out among humans. 

'Beast,' Nat mused, she'd never thought she would use that word to describe it. His word. Her 'beast' was an ever-present hunger, singing at her from the back of her mind, taunting her. She glanced at Tracy again, her sister never seemed to be bothered by her hunger. Right now Tracy sat there with a half drained glass of blood, -she- never drank straight from the bottle, easily setting aside her own cravings to finish some arrest report or whatever she was currently working on. 

Uneasily, Nat finished her dinner and headed over to the stereo. After slipping in an Ella Fitzgerald CD, Nat sank into the sofa and looked through her mail. Bill, bill, you may already be a winner, sale at Macy's, subscribe now… nothing interesting. Nat looked over to where Tracy continued to work, she knew she should try and talk to her. They were family now, they should at least try to be friends. Nat let her eyes wander to the easel the corner, Tracy's latest work was a of a deserted city street at night, full of shadows and menace, but no real insight into what the artist might be thinking. 

Natalie stared at that dark painting, then glanced out the windows. There were hours of darkness left and she felt the urge to get out. If she was truthful, she'd admit that she wanted to hunt, not that she would, but she wanted to. "I'm going to go out for awhile," Nat said suddenly.

Tracy glanced up and quirked an eyebrow as if to say 'and you're you telling me because?' but finally gave a small smile and told her to, "Have fun."

Nat nodded and headed for the door.

Though she'd had no definite destination in mind, an hour later Natalie found herself at the Raven. She wasn't surprised, she always ended up here. As she approached the bar a wine glass was placed before her, she didn't need to order, they recognized what she was. She didn't need to pay either, as technically… she owned the place now. Nat picked up her drink and headed to her usual table.

It had been a surprise when Tracy had handed her the deed, the blonde had transferred all of Nick Knight's holdings to their names and apparently the Raven had somehow found it's way there too. Glancing around the club, Nat admired the changes Tracy had initiated. Despite the fact that her sister never seemed to visit, the Raven now held her unmistakable stamp, the same feeling of dark desolation that was portrayed in her paintings, something that seemed to attract a good many vampires to the club. 

None of the elders seemed to mind the fact that two fledglings now owned the club, though the fact that they'd left the day to day running of it to Miklos might have something to do with that. Nat took a sip of her drink and let her eyes roam over the crowd, most of which were vampires. It was common knowledge among the Toronto community that Tracy and herself were of Nick, though none knew that circumstances of it. Sometimes she suspected that they knew there was something wrong about the two of them, that they could tell that they had done something that was no doubt very much against the code. Tracy said it was just her imagination and not to worry, but Nat wasn't too sure, there was just something about the way the others looked at them, especially Tracy.

As her thoughts returned to her sister, Nat found herself marveling again at the younger woman's self-restraint. While she herself always seemed just on the edge of her control, Tracy never faltered, never looked like she was about to lose it, never hesitated before going into a blood soaked crime scene or had to excuse herself after making a collar. Nothing ever seemed to phase her. And though Nat knew that that should please her, it didn't. More often than not it scared her. Maybe it scared the others too, maybe that's why no one had bothered them.

Or it could be Nick and Lacroix's names that protected them. Nat shifted uncomfortably in her seat and looked around the crowded club warily, no one here could read her thoughts, she had no reason to be uneasy. Sometimes she worried that someone might find out how they'd come across, that she'd purposely infected both herself and Tracy with Nick's blood -after- Nick had already left town. 

Did Nick ever wonder about her? Did he think she was dead? Had Lacroix told him she was? The specter of their 'unnatural' legacy haunted her and she often found herself wondering what Nick would do if he ever found out. 'When, not if,' she corrected herself. They were immortal now and it was only a matter of time before they met again. And besides that, it wasn't like she had made any effort to hide their existence from anyone. As Tracy had once said, 'If he turns around and looks, he'll see us.' 

She wasn't sure if she wanted that, she wasn't sure how she felt about him any more. Soon after it had been decided that they would stay in Toronto and carry on with these mortal lives, Nat had tried to find out where Nick and Lacroix had gone, but to no avail. It was as if they'd fallen of the edge of the world. Though if she -had- been given any information, she wasn't sure if she would have used it. Tracy showed no interest either finding Nick or even most of the Toronto community. In fact, sometimes Nat wondered if Tracy cared about anything anymore.

Downing the rest of her drink in a single gulp, Natalie headed for the dance floor. She pushed all thoughts of her unknowing master, unnatural sister and her precarious control over her beast from her head and lost herself in the music. The restlessness she felt would surely fade sooner or later, and for tonight she didn't need anyone.  
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